PurposeThis paper presents a conceptual model that links digital government service quality with organisational intelligence (OI) traits and occupational stress among the service providers in the public sector.Design/methodology/approachThis is a conceptual paper that carries out a systematic review of the key literature from 1978 to 2021, concerning the evolution of models, scales and dimensions attributing to digital government service quality, OI traits and occupational stress. Following this, a new conceptual model is proposed to reflect the need of today's public service delivery from a broader perspective.FindingsBased on the reviews of the existing models, there is no convincing evidence of the existence of a conceptual model that incorporates digital government service quality, OI traits and occupational stress from the public service providers' viewpoint. Therefore, a conceptual model, with occupational stress acting as a mediator between various OI traits and digital government service quality, is presented as a comprehensive framework to heighten the quality of the public service delivery.Originality/valueThis paper explores the gap in the current service quality studies and proposes a conceptual model that is more reflective of today's public service delivery. Firstly, it helps better understand digital government service quality from a much less focused area, the supply side (service providers) standpoint as opposed to the demand side (citizen) viewpoint (citizen). Secondly, it extends the understanding of performance and evaluation of public service delivery from perspectives such as knowledge utilisation, strategic alignment and participatory decision-making. Thirdly, it extends the literature on digital service quality from a non-technological perspective, as to how it is influenced by employees' psychological well-being factors.

PurposeThis paper aims to examine the mediating role of occupational stress in addressing the missing gap between organisational intelligence (OI) traits and digital government service quality.Design/methodology/approachBy employing multistage cluster sampling, a total of 394 responses from the Malaysian service providers at federal government agencies were obtained. For data analysis, the partial least square structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM) approach with a disjoint two-stage approach was employed to assess the proposed higher-order model. The analysis was carried out to examine how occupational stress mediates the relationship between OI traits at each component level and digital service quality.FindingsOccupational stress mediates the relationship between OI traits at the third-order component level and digital service quality. At the second-order component level, only the employee-oriented OI traits exhibit a significant indirect effect on the digital government service quality. Narrowing down to the first order component level, two OI traits, namely “Alignment and Congruence”, and “Heart” demonstrate significant indirect effects in the mediation analysis.Originality/valueBy incorporating the organisational model of stress (OMS) with public service-dominant logic (PSDL), this paper takes an approach to revitalise the stressors and individual-level performance used in a traditional work setting. Precisely, it examines how digital service quality is influenced by today's high-performing public organisation stressors (OI traits) along with non-technical element (occupational stress). More importantly, digital government service quality was examined from a less emphasised perspective, namely the supply side or service providers’ standpoint in sustaining the digital government service performance.